With the first fund-raiser of the year set for Sunday, organizers of the planned Korea/Vietnam Memorial National Education Center are hoping for a good start for 1996 -- and looking to Harrisburg for a chance at significant long-term support from willing taxpayers.

A public auction beginning at 9 a.m. Sunday at the Schnecksville Fire Company on Route 309 is expected to add to the roughly $100,000 already raised to build an estimated $4 million veterans memorial and public education center about the two wars.

The center is planned on 7 acres donated by Lehigh County at 4100 Dorneyville Road, South Whitehall Township, just east of Cedarbrook, the county nursing home. With the estimated $600,000 value of the property and other in-kind offerings tallied, organizers estimate that about $1 million has been pledged so far, said Randall W. Biggs, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Korea/Vietnam Memorial Inc.

At least two other major fund-raising projects are ongoing or planned for this year, Biggs said:

The sale of a book on the Korean War by Dr. Donald Chung, a California cardiologist and South Korea native who has agreed to donate its profits, and legislation designed to allow state taxpayers to donate a portion of their income-tax refund checks to the project.

Also, a golf tournament is planned in May, and various programs for Memorial Day and Veterans Day are being discussed, Biggs said.

Previous fund-raising events have included a $50-a-plate dinner in 1992 with retired Army Gen. William C. Westmoreland and other military brass and last May's 200-mile, 10-day march by 15 veterans from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to the memorial site near Dorney Park.

But the real coup would be the tax checkoff bill sponsored by state Rep. Donald W. Snyder, R-Lehigh, which received House approval in December and is being considered in the Senate. Officials estimate the law could not the project between $50,000 and $250,000 annually.

Organizers hope they are past the difficulties that have plagued the development effort that began in 1987, including lack of organization, fund-raisers that netted meager results and the loss of the center's first planned building site.

But they are being realistic as well, Biggs said, and groundbreaking is not expected for at least three years.

Constraints include a limited supply of potential donations, competition from similar projects like the Korean War Memorial dedicated in Washington last year, a veterans memorial envisioned for Fort Indiantown Gap, and a women veterans memorial being planned at the Arlington Cemetery gateway, Biggs said, and a small, volunteer staff.

"Without full-time employees, we're basically doing what we're able to do on a part-time basis," he said.

The need to abandon the first proposed site for the memorial on Industrial Drive in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, because federal regulations said it was too close to Lehigh Valley International Airport also set the project back.

Biggs stressed that the local project differs from other existing or planned memorials to veterans because it is envisioned as an education center with a computerized database and artifacts from which visitors can learn not only about the wars and the soldiers who fought them but also about the political and social events that shaped them.

Snyder agreed that the local group needs to emphasize the unique nature of its program.

"They have to better define their mission," the 134th District representative said. "It's difficult to get people to understand that this is not just another memorial, it's an education center."

Snyder said the group needs to get mainstream veterans organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion firmly behind the project.

Sunday's daylong auction will feature household goods, tools, building supplies, office equipment, collectibles and a host of other items at the fire company pavilion. Items to be donated to the auction can be dropped off at the fire company 6-9 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday or before 9 a.m. Sunday. For information, call Joe Zeller at 298-3254, Ed Beson at 395-7020 or Dave Apgar, 683-9509.

For information on the fund-raising book or to donate or to ask questions about the project, call 800-685-2160, or write to the organization at P.O. Box 416, Bethlehem 18016-0416.